Galavant (Episodes 3 & 4)

*Going to be totally honest, apparently I started this back in January and totally forgot it was here, better late than never I guess.*

Gonna be killer, gonna be ace

Folks dying of laughter, all over the place!

I'll admit some of the funnier bits from this week's showing of Galavant had me laughing until it hurt. Week two of Galavant has given us another two episodes, if you decided to keep up with the show that is, and all in all I would say I was happy with them. The episodes three and four are entitled "Two Balls" and "Comedy Gold" respectively and follow our heroes as they navigate overbearing parents and land-pirates while King Richard has to figure out how to deal with unhappy Valencians and a cheating wife.

I think that, out of the two episodes, "Two Balls" was the weaker in terms of story. I honestly thought they were going to actually go somewhere with the trio's storyline but it just sort of...stopped. There was a good bit of progress on the Richard/Maddalena relationship train even if it wasn't until the very end of the episode. "Comedy Gold" on the other hand was just that, comedy gold. Not only did it seem like more stuff happened, there were so many little moments that make me laugh just thinking about them such as Gareth telling the king a "joke" (which amounted to a giant beep due to censoring) with Richard replying aghast "Do you kiss my ring with that mouth!?" and the assorted bickering showcased by the heroic trio and the pirates. Not that "Two Balls" didn't have anything going for it. The bit where Richard is trying to show his captive Valencians (who are strict vegetarians) that he's a good guy by bringing out the small amount of vegetables he saved after burning their crops and declaring that if they can't have vegetables than neither can he upon which he has the much coveted vegetables burned in front of the captives and quickly states "Ah, that was a terrible idea", makes me laugh every time I think about it. Timothy Osmundson is amazing as King Richard and the part-time evil king, part-time hapless buffoon is quickly becoming my favorite character. I think some of the lines and gags that this character has would fall flat if it weren't for him.

As for the tunes for these two episodes, "Lords of the Sea" is by far my favorite. It reminds me of The Pirate Movie, a movie that my mom used to watch every time it was on. There's just something I find funny about gruff pirates acting silly. I liked "Comedy Gold" as well, just because it was funny to see Richard attempt comedy and fail. If I had to to pick a favorite song from the "Two Balls", I would pick "Jackass in a Can". I like how Galavant started out reluctant to gripe about his supposed knight but started to get really into it and by the end until he realized he was basically describing his own personality.

The basic summary of these two episodes is as follows (Watch out for the spoilers):

The trio needs a place to rest for the night so Sydney suggests his hometown (Sydney-land)...which apparently worships the ground he walks on. As they walk through his adoring fans, Sydney tells Galavant and Isabella that he was adopted by his parents after they found him on their doorstep, that they are a bit overbearing and lastly, as the trio knocks on the door, that they think he is a knight and Galavant is his squire due to his embellishing a bit in his letters home. Isabella and a reluctant Galavant agree to play along for their visit with Isabella going as far as to say she and Sid are engaged. Sid's parents decide to throw a ball to celebrate the pretend engagement. Galavant is forced to help with the ball preparation and during the course of this, learns that being a squire is a hard and thankless job. At the party Galavant tells Sid what he has learned during his time at a squire and that he picked Sid to be his squire because he was an honest person. Sid decides to tell his parents the truth about his job...the outcome to which we don't get to see! (Boo, show, boo!)

Meanwhile Richard is trying to find something to do in Valencia and asks his captives what they used to do for fun. Eventually he asks the court eunuch (whose response is "used to have balls" by the way) and he decided to throw a ball for the captives. The queen volunteers to "work up a comedy set" with the jester while Richard, Gareth and Chef, work on trying to find the appropriate food and music. Chef discovers that the Valencians are vegetarian due to religious reasons but the only veggies they have are Richard's private stock while Gareth pulls the executioners together to make them into a "band" since Richard killed all the Valencian musicians. The ball turns out to be a disaster: the jester's set consists of one joke, Richard burns the only vegetables in a misguided attempt at solidarity, and the executioner band's song is about ways to die. The king realizes no one is having fun and encourages the captives to razz him about how bad the ball was and about his faults which actually works, until the eunuch states the obvious about Maddalenasleeping with the jester. Richard orders the eunuch to be executed and storms off. (End episode 3)

Being on the road and in close quarters for such a long time is causing our heroes to get on each others' nerves and start bickering, which leads to them being kidnapped by some pirates. It's soon revealed that the pirates are trapped on land near the river because their ship is stuck on a hill. While trying intimidate our captured heroes, it becomes apparent that the pirates are experiencing the same side-effects of being stuck with the same people all the time as Galavant, Isabella and Sid. The captain takes Galavant off to the side and offers to let his friends go if Galavant joins his crew. During the captain's offer, our hero objects to the captain calling Isabella a mouth-breather and during his defense of Isabella (she has a deviated septum) Galavant realizes he actually likes her faults. He then, somehow, unties himself and overpowers the captain and declares that he and his friends are going to stop bickering and team up to get away from the pirates. But by the time they get back to the rest of the pirates, Isabella and Sid have freed themselves and subdued the pirates and announced that they too realized it was time to work together. At hearing this the pirates also wish that they could get back to being a team (to quote Carl, "I miss us."). Galavant and his friends decide to help the pirates remove their ship from the hill in exchange for being taken to Valencia. Once the ship is underway, Isabella tells Galavant about working for Richard but after finding out that he wasn't listening and that he is trying to be more considerate, decides she can't do it.

Back in Valencia, Richard is trying to decide what to do about the jester and Maddalena. Gareth tells Richard that maybe she's sleeping with him because he's funny. After a fake out making it look like Richard is going to kill the jester, the king asks the jester to teach him how to be funny so that he can woo his wife. During the musical number about comedy it's shown that Richard's sense of humor leaves a lot to be desired but he decides to throw a comedy show for Maddelena. Unfortunately all of Richard's jokes fall flat and the jester has Chef give the king the last resort, a pie for someone's face. That someone's face turns out to be Gareth's which actually manages to make Maddalena laugh. Later the queen finds the jester and "forgives" him for helping Richard but when she tries to kiss him, he says he feels guilty about what they are doing. Maddalena throws him into the dungeon because he is of no use to her if he is growing a conscience. After the jester is dragged away to the dungeon (the scary one...with the rats) Richard appears looking for Steve, the jester. When Maddalena asks who Steve is, Richard basically points out what we are all thinking, she didn't know the name of the man that she was sleeping around with and then walks off with her while telling more bad jokes. (End episode 4)